Examining the relationships between error-related brain activity (the ERN) and anxiety disorders versus externalizing disorders in young children: Focusing on cognitive control, fear, and shyness

2018 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 112-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandria Meyer ◽  
Daniel N. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Externalizing Disorders

Do Young Children Modulate Their Cognitive Control?

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solène Ambrosi ◽  
Patrick Lemaire ◽  
Agnès Blaye
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Age Range ◽  
Stroop Tasks ◽  
And Task

Abstract. Dynamic, trial-by-trial modulations of inhibitory control are well documented in adults but rarely investigated in children. Here, we examined whether 5-to-7 year-old children, an age range when inhibitory control is still partially immature, achieve such modulations. Fifty three children took flanker, Simon, and Stroop tasks. Above and beyond classic congruency effects, the present results showed two crucial findings. First, we found evidence for sequential modulations of congruency effects in these young children in the three conflict tasks. Second, our results showed both task specificities and task commonalities. These findings in young children have important implications as they suggest that, to be modulated, inhibitory control does not require full maturation and that the precise pattern of trial-by-trial modulations may depend on the nature of conflict.

Contributions of Brain Function and Structure to Three Different Domains of Cognitive Control in Normal Aging

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Jenny R. Rieck ◽  
Giulia Baracchini ◽  
Cheryl L. Grady
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Brain Structure ◽  
Functional Activity ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Diffusion Imaging ◽  
Normal Aging ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
And Task

Cognitive control involves the flexible allocation of mental resources during goal-directed behavior and comprises three correlated but distinct domains—inhibition, shifting, and working memory. The work of Don Stuss and others has demonstrated that frontal and parietal cortices are crucial to cognitive control, particularly in normal aging, which is characterized by reduced control mechanisms. However, the structure–function relationships specific to each domain and subsequent impact on performance are not well understood. In the current study, we examined both age and individual differences in functional activity associated with core domains of cognitive control in relation to fronto-parietal structure and task performance. Participants ( N = 140, aged 20–86 years) completed three fMRI tasks: go/no-go (inhibition), task switching (shifting), and n-back (working memory), in addition to structural and diffusion imaging. All three tasks engaged a common set of fronto-parietal regions; however, the contributions of age, brain structure, and task performance to functional activity were unique to each domain. Aging was associated with differences in functional activity for all tasks, largely in regions outside common fronto-parietal control regions. Shifting and inhibition showed greater contributions of structure to overall decreases in brain activity, suggesting that more intact fronto-parietal structure may serve as a scaffold for efficient functional response. Working memory showed no contribution of structure to functional activity but had strong effects of age and task performance. Together, these results provide a comprehensive and novel examination of the joint contributions of aging, performance, and brain structure to functional activity across multiple domains of cognitive control.

scholarly journals Systematic Exploration and Uncertainty Dominate Young Children’s Choices

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel J. Blanco ◽  
Vladimir Sloutsky
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Exploration And Exploitation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Systematic Fashion ◽  
Systematic Exploration ◽  
Competing Demands ◽  
Exploration Exploitation

Organisms need to constantly balance the competing demands of gathering information and using previously acquired information to obtain rewarding outcomes (i.e., the “exploration- exploitation” dilemma). Exploration is critical to obtain information to discover how the world works, which should be particularly important for young children. While studies have shown that young children explore in response to surprising events, little is known about how they balance exploration and exploitation across multiple decisions or about how this process changes with development. In this study we compare decision-making patterns of children and adults and evaluate the relative influences of reward-seeking, random exploration, and systematic switching (which approximates uncertainty-directed exploration). In a second experiment we directly test the effect of uncertainty on children’s choices. Influential models of decision-making generally describe systematic exploration as a computationally refined capacity that relies on top-down cognitive control. We demonstrate that (1) systematic patterns dominate young children’s behavior (facilitating exploration), despite protracted development of cognitive control, and (2) that uncertainty plays a major, but complicated, role in determining children’s choices. We conclude that while young children’s immature top-down control should hinder adult-like systematic exploration, other mechanisms may pick up the slack, facilitating broad information gathering in a systematic fashion to build a foundation of knowledge for use later in life.

scholarly journals Error-related brain activity is related to aversive potentiation of the startle response in children, but only the ERN is associated with anxiety disorders.

Emotion ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandria Meyer ◽  
Greg Hajcak ◽  
Catherine R. Glenn ◽  
Autumn J. Kujawa ◽  
Daniel N. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Startle Response ◽  
Brain Activity

Common and specific dimensions of internalizing disorders are characterized by unique patterns of brain activity on a task of emotional cognitive control

2020 ◽  
Vol 151 ◽  
pp. 80-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie T. Banich ◽  
Louisa L. Smith ◽  
Harry R. Smolker ◽  
Benjamin L. Hankin ◽  
Rebecca L. Silton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Internalizing Disorders

scholarly journals Error-preceding brain activity reflects (mal-)adaptive adjustments of cognitive control: a modeling study

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Steinhauser ◽  
Heike Eichele ◽  
Hilde T. Juvodden ◽  
Rene J. Huster ◽  
Markus Ullsperger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Modeling Study

scholarly journals An Examination of Error-Related Brain Activity and Its Modulation by Error Value in Young Children

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 749-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana C. Torpey ◽  
Greg Hajcak ◽  
Daniel N. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Brain Activity

scholarly journals How the human brain introspects about one’s own episodes of cognitive control

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Soto ◽  
Mona Theodoraki ◽  
Pedro M. Paz-Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Internal Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Temporal Correlation ◽  
Control Networks ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Cognitive States ◽  
Behavioural Performance

AbstractMetacognition refers to our capacity to reflect upon our experiences, thoughts and actions. Metacognition processes are linked to cognitive control functions that allow keeping our actions on-task. But it is unclear how the human brain builds an internal model of one’s cognition and behaviour. We conducted 2 fMRI experiments in which brain activity was recorded ‘online’ as participants engaged in a memory-guided search task and then later ‘offline’ when participants introspected about their prior experience and cognitive states during performance. In Experiment 1 the memory cues were task-relevant while in Experiment 2 they were irrelevant. Across Experiments, the patterns of brain activity, including frontoparietal regions, were similar during on-task and introspection states. However the connectivity profile amongst frontoparietal areas was distint during introspection and modulated by the relevance of the memory cues. Introspection was also characterized by increased temporal correlation between the default-mode network (DMN), frontoparietal and dorsal attention networks and visual cortex. We suggest that memories of one’s own experience during task performance are encoded in large-scale patterns of brain activity and that coupling between DMN and frontoparietal control networks may be crucial to build an internal model of one’s behavioural performance.

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